


The Crossing

by Aurora0331



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Canon Divergence - The Battle of the Blackwater, F/M, Modern Westeros, Roadtrip!!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-08-16 04:02:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20189179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurora0331/pseuds/Aurora0331
Summary: When Sandor smuggles Sansa out of King's Landing during the Battle of the Blackwater, the safest place he can think to go is south. But it's a long drive through the desert to Dorne, and when the little bird starts chirping he has no choice but to listen.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This modern AU story popped into my head a few days ago and I thought I'd breathe some life into it. Sansa is aged up for obvi reasons. Please let me know what you think!

The night fell heavy, a thick darkness lying across the road broken only by Sandor's headlights as he drove. Behind him, a nightmarish green glow was just visible on the horizon. King's Landing was burning in his rear vision mirror, and beside him was the girl he had stolen, curled up in a tight little ball against the passenger side door. Her face was white as a sheet, her eyes wide, staring orbs reflecting the pale LED lights of the dashboard display. Sandor wished she would sleep, or cry, or chirp at him like she used to. But she only stared.  
  
He drove long into the night, until the horizon was dark again and he felt some of the tension leave his body. They were travelling south, but Sandor had had the foresight to take the northernmost gate when they fled the city. That was where anyone would expect them to head, after all - north, to take the girl home. She had been so obedient, cramming herself down in the footwell and staying quiet and hidden as they crossed the checkpoint. The guards had been nervous, but Sandor had flashed his security pass and growled out a few threats for good measure, and they let him through. His face was identification enough, anyway. He'd driven until they were well out of sight, then doubled back towards Dorne.  
  
Sandor passed a hand over his face as he reflected on the magnitude of what he had done, and realised that it was shaking. In the low light he studied his palm, dark with dried blood, and thought what a fright he must look. No wonder the girl wouldn't speak. Sandor gripped the wheel hard, knuckles turning white as he glanced at her again. Her eyes had closed, at last. Good. Let her sleep.  
  
Just before dawn, when a soft pink began to leak into the sky and chase away the curtain of night, Sandor pulled over and changed his clothes, shielded from prying eyes by the great hulking cab of his truck. He kept a flannelette shirt and a pair of old jeans in the boot for the times when he felt like drinking inconspicuously at dive bars after work, and he was glad of them now as he peeled off his bulletproof vest. Being inconspicuous was a tough gig for a man like him, but had become even more difficult in recent weeks when pictures of him carrying the limp redhead through crowds of rioting protesters were plastered across every tabloid and evening news broadcast in the city.  
"Kingsguard Agent Saves Future Queen From Violent Mob". That had been one of the headlines - the rest were all in the same vein. For a brief time, he was a hero; but it only filled him with bitterness. Though he could never have left the girl to be torn apart by the mob, he wondered whether it might have been a better fate than what he had brought her back to. Sandor sometimes felt that he'd never had a conscience until he met Sansa fucking Stark.  
  
Sandor did what he could to wipe the blood from his hands, and stuffed his service uniform into the deep recesses of the car boot. The eastern skyline was now a fantastic watercolour of yellows, blues and reds, and for the first time he took in their surroundings. It was a three day drive through the desert to Dorne - here the lush greenery of the Crownlands gave way to wide expanses of tussock grass and sand, the only shade offered by stunted trees standing lonely vigils on the plain. It was cool now, but by the time the sun reached its highest point the heat would be sweltering. With a heavy sigh, Sandor closed the hatch and made his way to the driver-side door, almost starting when he opened it to see the girl watching him unblinkingly in the semi-darkness.  
  
She was more woman than girl, Sandor knew that. Sansa Stark was twenty-two years old, and no longer the naive, sheltered creature she had been when he first met her. But he always referred to her as "girl", and while he might tell himself it was just another of his intimidation tactics, he knew deep down that it was really a way of denying the intense, animal attraction he felt towards her. Sandor paused in the doorway and met her gaze, before looking away with a grunt and heaving his body into the driver's seat. She looked defeated, empty.  
  
"Where are we?" Sansa asked, her tone flat and hollow as if she didn't care what the answer was.  
  
"Desert," Sandor clipped, intentionally vague.  
  
Sansa made a little hum in her throat, then rested her head against the window and turned her eyes towards the rising sun. Sandor started the car and pulled back onto the road. He knew what she was thinking; there were no deserts north of King's Landing, so she knew they weren't going to Winterfell. Not yet. It bothered him that she didn't seem to care.

* * *

As the sun rose, Sansa watched the colour come into the world as if painted by an artist's hand. She had never been so far south before, had never seen the desert. She was captivated by the contrast between the red sand, stained to a deep rust by the iron in the soil, and the spiky tufts of pale green tussock grass. It seemed impossible that nature had crafted this place, at once so hostile and so beautiful. She marvelled at the wide dome of sky, a deeper blue than she had ever seen, and caught herself pressing her face against the passenger side window trying to find a trace of a cloud. The flat landscape was broken by a few rocky outcrops, boulders piled atop one another to form haphazard structures as if a child had put them together, forcing objects that did not match to tesselate.

This last thought prompted Sansa to glance over at her companion, silent and brooding as ever. She and Sandor were much the same as those rocks; forced together and weathered by the whims of a mad child with too much power - _Joffrey._ They did not belong with one another. But as Sansa studied Sandor's profile, she realized that there was something comforting about him. He scared her, sometimes, with his foul, brash speech and disregard for personal boundaries. But there was a kindness there, too, and his was the only gentle touch she had felt in so long. And hadn't he risked everything to take her away? Granted, she did not know where they were going, but she trusted Sandor. Sansa remembered the broad expanse of his back, glimpsed in the oblong frame of the side mirror as he changed his clothes behind the car that morning. Bathed in the red glow of the tail lights, he had looked more demon than man, but as the muscles of his shoulders shifted and bunched Sansa had been powerless to look away. He was strong; he could keep her safe. He had told her as much. 

_No one will hurt you, or I'll kill them._

With a creeping tingle akin to blood returning to a sleeping limb, Sansa felt a little of the numbness in her heart give way to tender affection.


	2. Chapter 2

As the sun crept towards its highest point and the fuel gauge ran dangerously low, Sandor pulled in to a squat roadhouse. Thankfully, the building and its dusty carpark looked all but deserted as it baked in the heat. Sandor pulled up beside the bowser, and Sansa stirred, reaching eagerly for the door handle as she prepared to jump out. 

Quick as a flash, Sandor leaned across her body and applied the child lock, trying to ignore the way her sudden proximity made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He could smell her sweat – cinnamon and fresh cut grass.

‘No, little bird,’ he rasped. ‘You stay in the car.’

She looked at him indignantly, an adorable crease forming between her brows even as she shrank away from him. ‘What?’

‘You heard me.’

Sansa set her jaw, cheeks flushing pink. It was good to see her showing some spirit after the despondency of those first few hours. ‘But I need to use the ladies’ room,’ she ground out, embarrassed that he had made her say it.

Sandor shook his head, moving away from her and yanking the peak of his cap down low over his eyes as he busied himself retrieving his wallet from the glove box. ‘Too risky. You’re conspicuous.’

‘And you’re not?’

Sandor glanced over at her, somewhat taken aback by the amount of sass she was giving him now. She raised an eyebrow.

‘No one looks twice at ugly fuckers like me,’ he told her, even as he began to open the driver’s side door. ‘Tall pretty gingers, on the other hand…’ Sandor barked a laugh at the look of annoyance that fell over Sansa’s countenance. Needling her further, he went on, ‘don’t worry. I’ll stop so you can piss behind a bush later.’

He had hopped out of the car and slammed the door behind him before she could respond. Chuckling, Sandor removed the fuel cap and began filling the tank, amusing himself with mental images of the perfect little lady squatting in the desert. He grew quickly sober, however, as he realised that even this perverse thought aroused him, and by the time he was marching into the roadhouse to pay, his mood had turned sour again. _Damn that girl and the things she did to him. _Remembering that they hadn’t eaten that day, and weren’t likely to stop again, Sandor purchased a few packets of jerky and some bottled water from the weathered old man at the cash register. He was starting to feel drained, eyes itching with fatigue, but he had to put as many miles as possible between Sansa and King’s Landing before he could rest.

Thankfully, Sansa was too frustrated with him to speak when he climbed back into the cab, and Sandor enjoyed blissful silence for a few hundred miles. As promised, he stopped to allow Sansa a bathroom break – wordlessly, she leapt from the vehicle and marched off across the sand, picking her way through tussock grass until she was almost out of sight from the road, where Sandor assumed she finally felt comfortable enough to relieve herself. When she returned, she kept up her silent treatment, and that suited him just fine.

* * *

Time was dragging for Sansa. The scenery had grown repetitive, and she was still too angry with Sandor to attempt conversation. She fiddled with the radio, but he snapped at her to _turn that shit off_. She played with the air-conditioning settings until he slapped her hand sharply. She even wound down her window, hoping to feel the hot desert air on her face, but Sandor asked her roughly if she wanted to fill the cab with dust before using the central controls in the driver’s side door to draw the window up and lock it. _Irritable bastard_, Sansa thought, though as the afternoon crept on she felt some of her resolve to ignore him waning. In an attempt to renew her earlier feelings of frustration, Sansa cast her mind back to how coarse and rude he had been to her at the roadhouse – but all she could remember now was the way her whole body had tingled when Sandor threw his bulk across her to lock the door. She had felt the heat radiating from him. His mouth had been so close to her own.

Sansa turned her head slightly so she could watch him from the corner of her eye, and imagined what it might be like to kiss him. It wasn’t the first time she had done this, though she would never admit it to anyone; there had been nights when she had lain awake in the Lannister’s compound and wondered what that cruel mouth, that was so often insulting or upbraiding her, was capable of. The thoughts had shamed her then, and she had pushed them away, convincing herself that it was only the boredom of her imprisonment that made her imagination so wild. She couldn’t possibly be attracted to the Hound, of all people. But now she let her mind explore the possibility of kissing this man, of feeling his big hands on her body. Sansa found that she liked the idea despite herself.

As she watched him, Sansa saw that Sandor’s eyelids looked heavy. More than once his head began to drop towards his chest, before snapping up with an exaggerated effort. With a twinge of guilt, she realised that he had not slept at all since their flight from King’s Landing, and she piped up, ‘would you like me to drive?’

Her voice sounded strange after so many hours of silence. Sandor snorted and shot her a withering look.

‘Do you even know how to drive, girl?’

Sansa felt her temper flare again. _Gods, but he knew how to get under her skin. _

‘Yes,’ she snapped. ‘I’m a very good driver, thank you very much. I’ve never even had so much as a parking ticket.’

Sandor laughed out loud at that, but it was a cruel, mocking sound. Sansa flushed hotly, and before he could say anything more she added, ‘and I’m _not _a girl. I’m a woman.’

Sandor didn’t laugh, this time. He looked sideways at her, his good eyebrow raised in a suggestive expression that sent a shiver down Sansa’s spine. Her anger was dissipating quickly, replaced by some other emotion that made her heart race.

‘That so?’ he rasped, all traces of derision gone from his tone.

‘Y-yes,’ stammered Sansa. She winced at how weak her voice sounded, and rallied. ‘I’m a grown woman. You should treat me with more respect.’

Sandor blinked, surprised, and it gave her a little rush of satisfaction to see that she had caught him off guard. He dashed that bubble of hope almost immediately.

‘And why’s that? Because you’re a lady, and I’m just a dog?’

‘No!’ Sansa cried, and with far too much feeling. ‘No. Gods, I hate it when you call yourself that.’

‘Why should you care?’

‘Because,’ Sansa fidgeted, casting about for an answer that wouldn’t reveal too much. _Because that’s what Joffrey called you. Because if you’re Joffrey’s dog, you can’t be mine_. ‘Because you’re not a dog, you’re a man.’

Sandor shrugged, and when he spoke again his tone was soft, a low rumble in his chest. ‘At least dogs are loyal.’

‘To whom?’ Sansa wondered aloud. Sandor looked over at her again, with a long, searching gaze that made her feel pinned, exposed. His eyes were dark in the gathering twilight. Sansa’s blood rushed in her ears. She had the odd feeling that they were on the edge of something, about to tumble over – but then he looked away with a heavy sigh, and the thread was broken.

‘We’ll sleep in the car for a few hours,’ Sandor said, pulling into a shallow rest stop beside the highway. Sansa nodded, feeling empty and deflated, and suddenly exhausted, though she couldn’t say why.


End file.
